Poem by Victoria Chang

Dear P.    
                                      
 
Your thoughts come out as frays as howls
they are like the bubbles from a fish’s mouth 
that rise and disappear globules of letters in 
a liquid envelope today a woman’s voice 
sounds old wood thick deep the voice is 
mine it takes deeper cover against the sky 
against its blue shin that never answers with 
anything but clouds and rain my voice digs 
with its fingers in the wrong direction dead 
down it goes head down my throat drags me 
one day I will bang and bang on the soil from
below but you and your briefcase will not hear 
me one day you will look down at the manhole 
pass through my breath rising up as steam


forthcoming in Barbie Chang

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Victoria Chang's fourth book of poems, Barbie Chang is forthcoming from Copper Canyon Press in the fall of 2017.  The Boss (McSweeney's) won the PEN Center USA Literary Award and a California Book Award.  Her other books are Salvinia Molesta and Circle.  She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2017.  You can find her at www.victoriachangpoet.com.

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